31–40 of 40 posts
"At big companies, you can expect to get ~$400k-$500k of stock" Where did you get that figure from? That's a bit surprising to me, there's no way you could get that kind of stock grant as an engineer in any of the big companies I've worked at.
"At big companies, you can expect to get ~$400k-$500k of stock" Where did you get that figure from? That's a bit surprising to me, there's no way you could get that kind of stock grant as an engineer in any of the big companies I've worked at.
Mostly by talking to friends that work at these places.
All that being said, money is terrible motivation for working at startup, unless you are the founder and CEO. I left said company after 6 months because the team was dissolving and terribly mismanaged. I had several offers, but the one I went with gave the lowest salary. The draw was that everyone I interviewed with extremely sharp and friendly and that the CEO would allow me to work remotely while I sailed around the world after a year and a half.
"At big companies, you can expect to get ~$400k-$500k of stock" Where did you get that figure from? That's a bit surprising to me, there's no way you could get that kind of stock grant as an engineer in any of the big companies I've worked at.
Wasn't too long ago Facebook was in the news for giving new hires $1m in stock as signon bonus.
"At big companies, you can expect to get ~$400k-$500k of stock" Where did you get that figure from? That's a bit surprising to me, there's no way you could get that kind of stock grant as an engineer in any of the big companies I've worked at.
Agreed, this seems insanely high. Factor of ten at least. I don't work at those three companies mentioned: maybe I just don't know the sector (and maybe I should move to CA). I'm And at the very least, there's stipulations tied to vesting and grants that aren't considered here. Or a portion of bonus is in the form of equity, which isn't accounted for, either. Risk-adjusted returns for startup equity aren't even close…
With a 4 year vesting schedule, $200k in stock is fairly normal and $400k is not unusual for a senior hire.
I have been a Software Engineer in the field for around 18 years and have worked at numerous companies.. I've been employee #1, and have also worked at a company with around 100K employees across the globe. I haven't yet been a founder, but I've been at 3 startups which have been acquired. At this stage in my career, if compensation is your primary concern, my opinion and experience is that your best bet is a bigger…
In my experience, bad advice (though I agree it may work for some). I made the mistake of joining startups early in my career. I still suffer because of those decisions. It is much better to work for a big brand when you are young. Yes, in startups you get to wear a lot of hats but unless you are really lucky, you never learn anything in depth. Big companies have enough good people to learn from if you are motivated…
In another, it was lots of JVM knowledge (both threading and memory management/garbage collection), caching, distributing work which needed to be calculated, etc. We found several JVM thread locking bugs and worked with Sun to fix them. I worked with some really great people in their 40's at this one and learned a lot from them.
I suppose the majority of startups are different these days though? Mostly RoR and Node based social things. The biggest worry is if the Facebook Like and Share buttons work.
If you are working somewhere that is only a CRUD website at it's core and doesn't have anything else going on, I suppose there isn't much to learn on the backend side of things.
The problem is, it's a lot harder to determine which startup opportunities are capable of providing a big pay off. By the time a startup is clearly a winner, everyone is clamoring for a job there and the chance for a big pay off is usually gone.
With big companies, the best ones with the best pay offs are always hard to get into, but much easier to identify.
To justify going into startups, you need to love what they stand for and the work that you'll be doing. If money is a major factor in your decision-making for a job, it's best to stick to established companies.
I have been a Software Engineer in the field for around 18 years and have worked at numerous companies.. I've been employee #1, and have also worked at a company with around 100K employees across the globe. I haven't yet been a founder, but I've been at 3 startups which have been acquired. At this stage in my career, if compensation is your primary concern, my opinion and experience is that your best bet is a bigger…
In my experience, bad advice (though I agree it may work for some). I made the mistake of joining startups early in my career. I still suffer because of those decisions. It is much better to work for a big brand when you are young. Yes, in startups you get to wear a lot of hats but unless you are really lucky, you never learn anything in depth. Big companies have enough good people to learn from if you are motivated…
Some of the people from my graduating class in college started at really large companies and learned nothing because they were such a small cog in a really large machine. I went to a company which varied between 40 and 50 people and had the opportunity to learn as much as I could soak in.
Anyway going to a startup is a lot like gambling. You'll most likely be looking for another job soon, but if it pays off it may pay off really big. Who cares if they bring in a "VP of Engineering" if I can cash out my options for six figures?
If it's been two years, the options are worthless, and it looks like you're going to end up a low level employee at a larger company, then it's probably time to move on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mostly by talking to friends that work at these places.
Are your friends very experienced? I went to Cal and afterwards went to one of the major tech companies. None of my recently graduated peers anywhere (including Facebook, Dropbox, etc) got anything close to $500k in stock. If you got lucky and timed valuation before a stock boom, you might get $250-300k. In general, the offers were around $60-150k in stock over 4 years. With more normal growth, it could reach $200k.…
That said, there's a sufficient sample of such folks that I am very willing to believe that such numbers are entirely reasonable, and not hard to get.
I have been a Software Engineer in the field for around 18 years and have worked at numerous companies.. I've been employee #1, and have also worked at a company with around 100K employees across the globe. I haven't yet been a founder, but I've been at 3 startups which have been acquired. At this stage in my career, if compensation is your primary concern, my opinion and experience is that your best bet is a bigger…
In my experience, bad advice (though I agree it may work for some). I made the mistake of joining startups early in my career. I still suffer because of those decisions. It is much better to work for a big brand when you are young. Yes, in startups you get to wear a lot of hats but unless you are really lucky, you never learn anything in depth. Big companies have enough good people to learn from if you are motivated…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience, bad advice (though I agree it may work for some). I made the mistake of joining startups early in my career. I still suffer because of those decisions. It is much better to work for a big brand when you are young. Yes, in startups you get to wear a lot of hats but unless you are really lucky, you never learn anything in depth. Big companies have enough good people to learn from if you are motivated…
But aren't the big companies often very slow and boring to work in? Of course they have some interesting projects but if you really want to build something from the ground and work together where the whole company is in the same team it will hard to achive in a big one
The sweet spot is to find a company developing a new product or something of the sort.
Where I work now I started on a new product that was young, and since moving on from that project, we have replaced many legacy applications/products. I've done my longest employment stint (4 years) of my career because it's been my best job at this point.